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Artists are now "fixing" albums after they are released.

I can see the merits of this, but I can also see it being problematic, and confusing for consumers. You have a song or album you love, but the next time you listen to it, it now sounds different? And maybe not it a way you now enjoy?

In video games, updates are such old news that it’s weird when a game isn’t consistently tweaked for months or years on end. Other mediums, however, are only just catching on to the magic of patches—and patch notes.

Earlier this week, fans of professional rapper, sadboy, and Ninja Fortnite duos partner Drake noticed that his recently released double album Scorpion sounded a little different. Turns out, those fans weren’t just hearing things. The album received an update, whose exact changes were chronicled in a widely shared Reddit post by users MrRom92 and Jrmio.

These weren’t overhauls that significantly altered the length or content of songs—just tweaks to the mixes of select songs. So basically, it’s the equivalent of a bug fix or optimization patch.

Remixes and remasters have been common for ages in the music world, but only in the age of digital platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have on-the-fly album updates become possible. Most famously, feckless attention seeker and bad opinions about slavery haver Kanye West repeatedly updated his 2016 release Life of Pablo, adding new lyrics, switching up beats, splicing in background vocals, creating new tracks, and tweaking mixes. More recently, he updated the track “I Thought About Killing You” on his latest album, Ye, to include a reference to that whole slavery thing.

Other mediums are coming down with gotta-patch-it fever, too. Arrested Development’s surprise season four “remix” springs to mind as the digital TV equivalent of an enhanced edition or an overhaul patch. (Although in this case, you can still find the original, even though it’s buried layers deep in menus.)

Is this emerging trend a good thing? I think that really depends on which work has been thrust back under the microscope. A remix couldn’t save Arrested Development season four from itself, but there’s no arguing that it needed saving. As for music, I listen to some of my favorite albums and think, “man, this could be a thousand times better with cleaner production,” but I’ve also come to adore little quirks and mistakes on others. A voice crack that shows how much emotion went into the vocals. The barely audible sound of a studio floorboard creaking in the background. Some songs are time capsules. Others feel timeless because of their flaws.

In Drake’s case specifically, there’s no beating around the Fortnite stealth bush: Scorpion suffers from hella bloat. I’m not sure it needs a bunch of obsessive tweaks so much as it could use some good old-fashioned cuts. Also, Drake really needs to nerf shotguns already.

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Just imagine buying the original ZZ Top albums, then finding the next time you played them you had the ones with drum machines, awful digital reverb and extra distortion? Or a Charlie Daniels song like "Uneasy Rider" or "Longhaired Country Boy" where he suddenly switched in his new, Christian, clean-living lyrics? Or if Eddie said, "We never were too keen on 'Dance the Night Away' or 'Diver Down.' We're deleting those from the history books." SO glad I have CDs!

Doesn't sound new to me. I still remember when ZZ Top did it in the 80s to songs like Tush and La Grange. They replaced the original drums with horrible 80s drums for a greatest hits thing. The worst part was that the local classic rock station started playing the new versions! Augh....I think that eventually went away.

Originally Posted by rocknblues81

In other words, music artists are turning into a bunch of George Lucas.

Doesn't sound new to me. I still remember when ZZ Top did it in the 80s to songs like Tush and La Grange. They replaced the original drums with horrible 80s drums for a greatest hits thing. The worst part was that the local classic rock station started playing the new versions! Augh....I think that eventually went away.

I remember buying an Ozzy 'Best Of' compilation cd, and hearing the butchered version of Rock 'n Roll Rebel... Many of Jake's leads and fills were different, and NOT in a good way. It was embarrassing. I literally said "What the f**k is this?"

"There's too many people on this basketball that's floating around the sun, who are too afraid to allow themselves to FEEL" - Edward Van Halen
"Van Halen was never about the singer..." - A very wise fan.
"Embrace the past. Live in the moment but keep your eyes on the future, and keep on moving forward..." - Richie Sambora

In the cases of Ozzy and ZZ Top, these were done to albums and re-released as updated albums. We're talking about actually changing the music you already own on your devices. It would be like instead of re-releasing Star Wars as the special editions, you put a theatrical release of the OT to watch at home, and Lucas "patches" the special editions onto the movie you own, just because he wasn't happy with the originals. Or maybe he just wants to add Jar Jar to every SW movie, so you put in your prized theatrical copy of Empire Strikes Back and suddenly there's Jar Jar juggling Luke's severed hand. "Ooopsy daisy! Meesa thinkin' yousa maybe gonna need dis back! Annniiiieee! Why did yousa cut off your boyo's hand? Annie?"

EVH 1979: Well, actually it's not much of a vacation, because we run everything ourselves. We design our own album cover, we have to be in the office every day to sign checks - the whole corporation revolves around us. Nothing can be done without our approval. We even have photo approval.

Dave Mustaine remixed the old Megadeth albums without reverb and changed guitar parts and lyrics too, from what I understand.

Yep, Billy Gibbons changed the entire ZZ Top ALBUMS! The greatest hits "Rancho Texicano" and "Chrome, Smoke and BBQ" box set and a few select discs like Fandango are the only places to avoid the revisions.

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